


gonna get better

by freshbloom



Series: The Clifftop Chronicles [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, deals with mike and his home life, honestly im just bad at describing my own fics so im gonna stop here, this is somewhere between fluff and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:40:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshbloom/pseuds/freshbloom
Summary: Mike and El revisit the clifftop, emotional conversations ensue. Inspired by the song "Gonna Get Better" by Broken Social Scene.





	gonna get better

Mike sat at the clifftop, legs hanging off the edge and swinging gently. The space was abandoned, just as he’d wanted it to be–just as he knew that it would be. It wasn’t necessarily an unknown location in Hawkins, but it wasn’t often populated. People seemed to overlook it all, and Mike had too, until things at home had escalated and he’d started looking for an escape. The first time he’d run out, his parents’ screaming at one another still ringing in his ears, he hadn’t known where to go. He’d just needed to get out, so he’d picked up his bike and ridden off, half-heartedly paying attention to his surroundings. Somehow, he’d ended up here.

The glistening water, the quiet air, and most of all, the openness of the spot had him hooked. He felt like he could breathe here, and so he’d come anytime he felt world sick. Which was what had brought him to the clifftop today, quietly basking in the tranquility of the space, thinking about everything and nothing at all. He’d been sitting there a while, though it didn’t feel that way, like time had no effect in this little corner of the universe.

The sound of gravel shifting behind him causes Mike to turn his head, and his heart stutters at the sight of El walking towards him. She’s concerned, he can see traces of it on her face and in the way her eyes keep darting around, as though she’s afraid there may be something lurking in the shadows of the rocks. He realizes she hasn’t been to this spot, not since that day. 

Mike watches her as she approaches, a mess of curls and worn overalls and his sweater and beaten down Converse and fuck, she looks the way this place feels. She is glowing and caught in the sunlight and there is a haze of blue reflecting off the water that makes it seems as though she is not existing below the sky, but within it. Mike thinks all the world must have collapsed in on itself a thousand times to create this universe, one where she is not a spectator of the beauty around her, but the lake and the cliff and the sky and Mike are all a spectator of her. He sits there and wishes he could be more for her, that the universe could be more for her. That somehow he could capture the tranquility of this place and every other lovely place on earth and bring it to her so she can feel at peace always. He wishes it so desperately that he has to turn away as she comes to a stop beside him, for fear that he might do something embarrassing– like start crying. 

“Mike?” She says softly. He can hear the concern, the underlying question in the way she says his name. Are you okay?

“How’d you find me?” He responds, voice quiet, but echoing the answer to her question so clearly, it’s almost as though he’s shouting. 

“It’s Saturday,” She says, dropping down to sit beside him, “I stopped by the house. Your Mom told me you might be here.”

Since she’d gotten back, Mike and El had claimed Saturdays as their special day of the week. She’d come over in the morning and they’d fill the hours doing anything and everything and nothing. 

“Shit, El I’m sorry. It’s just they–they were fighting again, and I just wanted–needed to get out of there-”

“Mike,” She interrupts, reaching out and grabbing his hand, “It’s okay.” He turns to look at her, and up close like this, her brown eyes staring earnestly into his own, he feels as though they could transcend time. He hopes they do. 

Mike squeezes her hand gently before dropping his head on her shoulder, and he feels her rest her own head against his in turn. Then it’s just the two of them, Mike and El, legs hanging and swinging softly in sync, basking in the serenity they forgot had existed in Hawkins. Mike feels more content than he has in weeks, months, years–maybe. The weakening Spring light is still cascading in hazy beams, warming them ever so slightly, and the birds are chirping distantly and there’s a stillness to the water that makes it seem as though the world has stopped, if only for a moment. El’s thumb is gently moving back and forth on the back of his hand, and he shifts closer to her, thinking he could maybe fall asleep like this until she breaks the silence.

“Why here?“ 

"I don’t know,” Mike sighs, "I just like it, I guess. It’s… not as suffocating.“ He knows she’s aware of what’s happening between his parents. The yelling does not seem to halt for anyone, not even El, and Mike almost always ushers them out of the house when it starts up, Holly trodding alongside them as they traverse through downtown Hawkins. He hates being in his own home now. Hates the palpable tension that seems to care nothing for those that are forced to reckon with it. He doesn’t think he’s taken a proper breath in that house for weeks. 

El takes to squeezing his hand again, their own form of communication. Infinitesimal and yet speaking volumes. 

"Things will get better, Mike.” She says, the softness in her voice making his heart falter. Mike almost starts crying. 

He wants to believe her, thinks that maybe he can, in a future life or a past one, but right now he can’t think past the hollowness he knows is waiting for him back home. 

“How do you know?”

She shrugs, “Cause I don’t think they can get any worse.” The sentiment is such a perfect grasp on the sort of fucked up positivity that Hawkins can offer, that Mike laughs, the sound echoing across the expanse of space before them. She giggles softly too, and their laughter fills the area so wholly, it’s almost as if their happiness was made for this clifftop and this lake and Spring itself. 

“Hopper tell you that?” He asks, and he feels her head nodding in response. 

“Course he did,” Mike mumbles, amusement lacing his words, “Thanks though, El. I like it. It’s weirdly optimistic." 

She hums lightly in response, and they fall back into silence. Mike doesn’t know how they could be existing this way, how the world could allow for a moment so lovely to redefine the memories that had once plagued this place. He didn’t know it could be so forgiving, and he thinks it might never be again. 

"I guess you’re right, anyway,” Mike says after a while, “I mean considering that the last time we were here together…” He trails off when El’s body tenses abruptly, and fuck, he feels like shit for reminding her. 

“Yeah,” She whispers. It’s one word, but there’s such raw pain in the way it falls from her mouth that Mike feels something inside him crumble. He hadn’t thought about that day, not since she’d come back. But now, the water and stone and the gravel and the sky and even El, all seemed to be screaming at him. Remember, remember, remember. And he does. Mike remembers. When he had almost been gone and then she really had been, just a few hours later. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe. 

“Mike,” El says, suddenly. There’s a resigned sadness in her tone and he knows she must have been recalling that day too. He opens his eyes and finds that the space has become serene again, as though all it needed was her voice, alive and whole, to erode the memories engraved in the rock. 

“Yeah?”

“I don’t wanna have to save you like that again.”

Mike looks at her, sun in her eyes and in her heart and he feels the depth of the lake below paralleled between them. 

“You already have.”


End file.
